at OpenHelix

This is a paper I’ve been waiting for: the analysis of the HeLa genome. I was aware of a lot of issues with the cell lines and missing or duplicated regions from the ENCODE data that was coming along some time ago: Mining the “big data” is…fascinating. And necessary.

People may be familiar with HeLa cells even if they aren’t in biomedical research because of the great book by Rebecca Skloot: The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks which explored the history of these cells and the woman whose terrible cancer led to their existence.

But there were many discussions over the years about how different these cells are from actual tissues, and concerns over how representative they are for actual human research issues. Here are some: